Duggan emphasizes quality-of-life issues in first State of the City

When Mayor Mike Duggan moved into Detroit in early 2012, his car insurance jumped from $3,000 per year to $6,000 per year.

He's not going to stand for that.

Wednesday night, in his first State of the City address, Duggan announced a plan to create a citywide auto insurance program. D-Insurance, as it is being called, is just in the idea phase, but Duggan said he and the City Council would start on a feasibility study by summer.

The program is one of a handful of initiatives at the top of Duggan's agenda that are designed to impact how Detroiters can get to work and get and keep jobs.

He also told the crowd about a man he met who left his house two hours early each day in order to catch the bus and arrive at his job on time — a job that is just five miles away.

Under new Detroit Department of Transportation head Dan Dirks, certain bus lines have already been extended and 20 new mechanics were hired to keep city buses in service. Additionally, Duggan said he has asked the federal government to buy the city 50 new buses to supplement a fleet that is about 10 years old – which is approaching ancient by city bus standards.

Blight was another major theme of the night, with several initiatives coming together to form a blight-removal strategy.

Under the newly formed Department of Neighborhoods, each Detroit City Council district would have a director embedded in the area. This person's "only job is to fight blight," Duggan said.

The city also intends to use approximately $20 million that has been accumulating in a Fire Escrow Fund to demolish fire-ravaged properties. That effort is expected to begin in the next 30 days.

Another priority: City streets will be lit, Duggan said, with the new lighting authority activating 500 new lights per week. The mayor said that half of the city's street lights will be relit by the end of year and the rest will be on by the end of 2015.

Duggan also promised, to great applause, that the newly formed Detroit Land Bank will begin suing landowners who have abandoned their properties or allowed them to become blighted. Property owners would have six months to fix them up, Duggan said, or the homes will be taken and auctioned off.

It's not enough to fight blight, the mayor said; people have to be moved into the homes.

Also coming is a neighborhood incubators program designed to help small businesses not located within Detroit's emerging Midtown and downtown areas. The goal, Duggan said, is to give them "access to capital and mentoring."

He did not say, however, how those efforts would be substantially different from what is being offered by existing groups, such as D:hive, Food Lab and TechTown Detroit, that offer small-business development.

Rachel Lutz, owner of Detroit women's clothing store The Peacock Room, said after hearing Duggan's speech it's clear "he's not wasting any time sinking his teeth into what we need to address."

Duggan brought the crowd to a crescendo with his final plan of action: fighting metal scrappers who are "tearing apart this city."